Independent high-attainment exemplars
Study the reasoning, not a memorised script. Each example separates accurate AO1, sustained AO2, counter-argument and paragraph judgement so you can see how a position is built.
These are independently written teaching exemplars. They are not official responses, examiner judgements or grade guarantees.
Three papers · nine arguments
Natural evil can have a limited developmental purpose only where suffering is proportionate, intelligibly connected to growth and not a replaceable means. Soul-making therefore explains some risk and struggle but cannot plausibly give every instance of natural evil a purpose; the strongest conclusion distinguishes a general purpose for a law-governed world from a particular purpose for each victim's suffering.
Read the complete answer →The argument can explain why contingent reality depends on something non-contingent, but it is not sufficient on its own to identify that ground as the personal God of classical theism.
Open the argument preview →Falsification supplies the best diagnostic challenge to empty God-talk, but Wittgensteinian use and eschatological verification explain religious meaning more fully than a single empirical test can.
Open the argument preview →Telos is powerful when understood as rational human flourishing rather than biological function, but practical reason and proportional judgement do more of the decision-making work than telos alone.
Open the argument preview →Quality of life is indispensable because suffering and agency matter, but ‘only’ is indefensible: autonomy, equal dignity, intention, relationships and institutional safeguards determine how quality judgements may be used.
Open the argument preview →Duty is Kant's test of moral worth, but its content arises from freedom, rational consistency and respect for persons; describing the theory as only concerned with obedience badly misrepresents it.
Open the argument preview →Augustine powerfully interprets Genesis 3 as a diagnosis of disordered love and dependence on grace, but his inherited-guilt framework goes beyond the text and creates serious problems for justice and freedom.
Open the argument preview →Christian theology ultimately grounds Jesus' unique authority in divine identity, but the Gospels make that authority intelligible through his teaching, liberating practice, self-giving and resurrection rather than through bare status alone.
Open the argument preview →Exclusivism preserves the particular claims of incarnation and grace, but versions that equate salvation with explicit Christian membership cannot adequately address epistemic luck or evidence of transformation beyond the Church.
Open the argument preview →How to use an exemplar